Ford staff prepare to strike over pay and pensions

Staff at Southampton’s Ford plant are preparing stage a 24-hour strike in a row over pay and pensions.

Unite, which represents about 1,200 white collar employees at the carmaker, said the walkout will start at 6am on Monday, affecting sites across the country including Southampton, Dagenham in
Essex, Bridgend in South Wales, and Halewood on Merseyside.

The union said staff were ''furious'' at plans to close the final salary pension scheme to new starters and lower their rates of pay.

The dispute is understood to involve dozens of the 600 staff at Ford’s Southampton assembly plant in Swaythling, which makes around 28,000 Ford Transit vans a year.

Production workers are not involved in the dispute.

Unite national officer Roger Maddison said: ''Our staff members will not stand by and allow Ford to create a two-tier workforce on pay and pensions. To date Ford has failed to make any genuine
attempts to resolve this dispute.

''We fiercely oppose the closure of Ford's final salary scheme to new entrants because we believe ultimately Ford will try to close the entire scheme.

Ford must prove that it is committed to the UK by investing in its UK workforce. The UK has the best sales in Europe, there's no excuse to attack the terms and conditions of a new generation of
Ford staff.

''The company is also refusing to back away from creating a two tier workforce by making new starters work for less money for doing the same job as existing staff. This is totally unacceptable.''

A Ford spokesman said: ''The issue giving rise to the industrial action relates to a disagreement between the company and a particular group of its employees in relation to their ongoing pay and
benefit negotiations.

''Ford remains willing and available to continue discussions with the union representing these workers.

''The vast majority of the company's employees are not involved in this disagreement, or the decision to take industrial action.''